


Tender is the Night

by ArtDeco



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 14:36:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10856031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtDeco/pseuds/ArtDeco
Summary: 'His mouth had curved into that delightfully toothy grin, and Adil was equal parts charmed and apprehensive; Sober Toby’s capacity for discretion was sub-par, but Drunk Toby could be downright lethal.'It was too much to hope that Toby's birthday might go off without a hitch.





	Tender is the Night

**Author's Note:**

> I get the impression that we are all wallowing in dissertation/coursework/exam-induced depression, so here's something rather more light-hearted than my usual fare to cheer everyone up. Title from the Keats, rather than the Fitzgerald. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

When Adil came out of the bathroom, Toby was lying, still gloriously naked, on his stomach on top of the bedclothes. His face, half-hidden in a pillow, was relaxed in a rare expression of contentment. Billie Holliday’s _Solitude_ was crackling through the wireless, and from where he leant against the wardrobe, Adil took a moment to admire the rippling of the muscles in his back as he breathed. The sheets rustled as he shifted, an arm uncoiling to stretch in vain for his cigarettes on the bedside table, before he let it drop back onto the mattress.

“You could help, you know,” he said, his voice muffled.

Adil smiled. “I’d much rather watch.”

“Never had you down as a voyeur.”

Adil moved back to the bed. Toby blinked up at him lazily, lips twitching as he leant down to thread a hand into his hair.

“I don’t need to be now I’ve got you, do I?”

Adil pulled his head back, and Toby’s body was soft and pliable as he kissed him.

“We haven’t got time,” Toby protested weakly, when Adil pushed him onto his back.

“Probably not. Put your hands above your head.”

“Oh, God.”

“I’m not _that_ good.”

“Happy birthday to me,” Toby said dreamily, six minutes later. He tugged at Adil’s arm, pulling him back up the bed until they could lie side by side. He rolled back onto his stomach, and Adil felt the warm weight of one of his legs being thrown over his calves.

“Twenty-four,” Adil said blithely. “Practically ancient.”

“Don’t start. You’re as bad as the chaps in the office. Thompson keeps trying to orchestrate a liaison between me and his sister. Says it’s time I settled down.”

Adil traced a hand across the expanse of Toby’s back, joining up the freckles.

“He’s the one in love with the statistician?”

“Miss Edwards? Yes. Absolutely mad for her. I’m surprised he doesn’t drop to the floor whenever she enters the office and roll over so she can scratch his belly. Jones said he saw her at the opera with the C.O. last week, but I think he was just trying to get Thompson back for hiding his Welsh flag.”

“Welsh flag?”

Toby gave a long-suffering sigh. “He keeps a tiny Welsh flag on his desk, next to his typewriter. He’s only being a brown-nose; he and the C.O. are both from the Vale of Glamorgan. Jones hardly even _speaks_ Welsh.”

The wireless crackled for a moment, then gave way to the bright strings of Gershwin’s _An American in Paris_. Adil felt the muscles in Toby’s back expand and contract happily.

Toby had spun a story about being required at the hotel to prepare for an event, and his head of department had allowed him to clock off at four o’clock. At half-past, when Adil had caught sight of him in the lobby, he had invented an urgent errand, slipped up the back stairs, and been hauled into Toby’s suite. Toby had been jittery, coiled tight as a spring, and Adil had tasted the whiskey on his lips from the boozy lunch his work pals had treated him to. The light March drizzle had given way to a shower by five o’clock, but they had drawn the curtains against the murky sky, Toby struggling to tune the wireless as Adil pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses to the back of his neck. They had just divested each other of their clothes when Adil had noticed the smudge on Toby’s nose-

“It’s that damn fool Thompson; he’s been flicking ink pellets across the office all afternoon-”

– And then fingers stained with alcohol had clutched at fingers stained with ink, light jazz on the wireless and rain on the windows, the bedclothes tangled around their ankles.

Adil waited for Toby’s favourite section of the movement to pass, feeling his toes twitch and rub against him as he marked it out against his calf.

“Did you ask your C.O. about that time off?”

“It’s a little awkward,” Toby said drowsily. “He might sign off on a long weekend if I catch him on a good day, but not for at least another month. That’s all he could stretch to. He’s as up against it as we are; we could do with another man, really-”

Adil tried not to click his tongue. Toby was now working Saturdays, and on the mornings Adil hadn’t arranged to see him, he’d be at the office for eight o’clock, and often not return home until eight o’clock that evening. Lady Hamilton had stopped asking him to change for dinner, but when she had walked in on him still poring over a stack of papers at two o’clock in the morning, the row had woken half of the third floor. Adil didn’t like to needle him, but his face was looking thinner, and he had developed a rather wheezy cough which kept both of them up on damp nights.

“They’re overworking you,” Adil had said crossly, when he’d found Toby asleep in the bath.

“We’re-”

“– Up against it, I know; and they’ll be even more up against it when their best junior codebreaker comes down with pneumonia.”

“Well, I promise I won’t give it to you before I pass over,” Toby had said with a yawn.

Adil knew there was only so long he could burn the candle at both ends before he really did fall ill – he himself had been plagued by head-colds when he’d attempted to balance his shifts at The Halcyon with night-school – but Toby had a frustrating tendency to dig in his heels on the most inconvenient occasions, and the harder Adil pressed for him to slow down, the surer Toby was to keep pushing. But a long weekend was better than nothing, he supposed; and it was rather difficult to worry when Toby was sprawled loose-limbed beside him, humming quietly to the music.

“I wish we could stay here tonight,” Toby murmured. “Miss the ghastly party.”

“You’ll enjoy it once you’re in the swing of it,” Adil said, though even to his own ears he sounded doubtful.

“Did you see the invitations?” Toby said sourly. He had begun to tense again, the point of his shoulder pressing into Adil’s bicep. “‘The birthday of Lord Frederick Hamilton, and The Honourable Tobias Hamilton.’ Makes me sound like a glorified private secretary.”

Adil massaged his fingertips against a knot beneath Toby’s shoulder blade.

“I didn’t know you were an Honourable,” he said lightly.

“Freddie was one too, until Father died. But there were enough Honourables at Eton that you realise it doesn’t mean very much. Not these days, anyway.”

He hummed idly again as Adil pressed a little more firmly against the knot.

“A big party will be fun, though, won’t it?” Adil said encouragingly. “All your friends-”

“All of our _society_ friends,” Toby corrected. “Which translates to Mother’s friends, their children, and anyone we went to school with who isn’t yet overseas. In other words: no-one from the office, no-one from Freddie’s squadron unless they’re gentry, and no you.”

“Darling, even if your mother threw open the doors to every middle-class acquaintance you and Freddie had ever made, I’d still be serving the cocktails. Wrong class, wrong colour.” He kept his voice casual. “I will be there. Just behind the bar.”

He felt warm, slim fingers skating over his stomach.

“You must promise to protect me from Lady Theresa,” Toby said seriously.

Adil grinned. “She does have excellent taste. She said you were a dish.”

“Oh, ghastly. I do not want to hear another word about her adventures with her Irish Hunter.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The fingers gave him a slight pinch.

“It’s a breed of horse, you filthy-minded creature.”

Adil’s hand began to trail down the knobs of Toby’s spine. He reached the small of his back, and Toby shifted against him, the leg slung over his calves pressing down a little.

“Doesn’t your mother realise that you’re a terribly important war official who hasn’t time for affairs of the heart?”

He stretched out his little finger, skimming rhythmically across the flesh, feather-light.

“Hardly,” Toby said. “And she can never resist the annual birthday parade.”

His shifting had become a little more rhythmic, and Adil’s hand moved lower, grasping at the still-pink flesh of his backside.

“We really don’t have time,” Toby said breathlessly. “Really, really…”

“Time for what?” Adil asked pleasantly.

Toby raised his head, eyes narrowed.

“Don’t think you’re going to get away with that stunt you pulled earlier,” he said haughtily, though the effect was rather ruined in the way he was still half-moving against him. “I thought you said you’d never played cricket?”

Adil blinked. “I haven’t.”

“Well, you’ve got quite an arm on you.”

Adil grinned, and squeezed the pink flesh again.

“I didn’t go too hard, did I?”

Toby sniffed. “Far too hard. You’re an absolute brute and I can’t think how I shall ever be able to forgive you.”

“Oh, dear,” Adil said, adopting a tone of mild concern. He rolled away, and began to disentangle himself from Toby’s legs. “I’m terribly sorry, darling. If I’d known you’d hate it then of course I would never have done it.”

“I didn’t say that,” Toby said quickly, and scowled when Adil gave a shout of laughter.

“I never said I hated it, but I didn’t say I liked it either!”

“Well, _did_ you like it?”

There was a beat, and Toby’s expression contorted, as though he were being forced to swallow something rather sour. Adil’s face twitched with the effort of keeping it straight.

“That is beside the point,” he said eventually, and gave Adil a push when he hooted again.

“You’ve no right to laugh! It was your bloody idea!”

“Actually, it wasn’t,” Adil said, lying back down beside him. “It was Mr O’Hara’s.”

Toby jolted so violently he almost fell off the bed. “Mr O’Hara? Adil, have you lost your wits?”

“No need to panic,” Adil said, reaching out to run a soothing hand up and down his side. “He just asked me last night at what age the Brits stop giving birthday spankings. I said I didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about, and he was kind enough to fill me in. Apparently it’s very popular over in the States.”

Toby tossed his head. “I’m hardly surprised,” he said witheringly. “Seems like the sort of barbaric tradition an American might swear to.”

“You weren’t finding it barbaric half an hour ago.”

Toby gave him the sort of look that scorches.

“In all seriousness, though,” Adil said, giving Toby’s waist a gentle squeeze, “You didn’t mind it, did you? I know I sort of sprung it on you-”

A hand flew out and covered Adil’s eyes.

“What are you-?”

“No, I did not mind, no, it was not too hard, if anything it wasn’t hard enough, and I hope I don’t have to wait until my next birthday for it to happen again.”

The hand was removed from his eyes. Adil saw that two pinks spots had flared high on Toby’s cheeks, but he met his eye almost challengingly.

“And that’s all I’m going to say on the matter,” he said primly. “But if you so much as think of mocking me about it then come _your_ birthday you’ll be sorry you’ve ever even heard of Mr O’Hara.”

Adil rather thought he wouldn’t be.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, darling,” he said, and kissed him to hide his grin.

“We had something called birthday kicks at school,” Toby said, once they had settled beside each other again. “You had the number of seconds of your age to get a head-start, then everyone in the form would run after you, and if they caught you, which they invariably would, then you got one kick for each year of your age.”

“And you call the Americans barbaric.”

“Trouble was, Freddie could always outrun me, so most of the time I’d get his kicks as well as my own. And it always seemed to happen on the cricket pitch, so I’d stagger into next lesson covered in grass stains and get a dressing-down from the master.”

“Couldn’t they have put a stop to it?”

Toby blinked. “It was only _fun_ ,” he said, as though Adil had misunderstood him. “Although someone did fracture my left kneecap when I was in the Upper Fourth.”

“And these are the future leaders of the country.”

“He’s in the Foreign Office now, last I heard. But I’ll get him back once I’m Home Secretary.” Toby dropped his head onto Adil’s chest. “Post him to Outer Mongolia.”

They lay quietly for several minutes, listening to the Gershwin. Warm breath tickled Adil’s chest, and, inexplicably, he felt wetness pricking the corners of his eyes as the swings began to swell. He cleared his throat, a little startled by his mawkishness, and pressed a hard kiss to the top of Toby’s head.

There were several seconds of static after the Gershwin’s final chords.

“This is the BBC,” said a plummy male voice. “The date is Thursday the 13th of March 1941, and the time is now six o’clock. The Prime Minister has announced intentions to introduce clothes rationing from the first of June-”

“Bloody hell,” Toby mumbles. “Mother won’t like that. First Woolton pie and now this.”

“I can’t imagine your mother will ever lay eyes on a Woolton pie.”

“Well, they’ll be serving it at The Savoy, apparently. Thank heavens Mr Garland knows his way around the black market.”

“At Huntingdon today, the going was good to firm,” the newsreader broke in. “Moorland Holiday emerged victorious in the Duke of Carlisle stakes, beating the favourite, Devil’s Advocate, with odds of eleven to one…”

“We should go to the races,” Toby said, yawning. “Royal Ascot’s terrific in good weather. You’d look smashing in a top hat.”

“I don’t own a top hat.”

“You can borrow one of mine.”

When the newsreader began the evening’s weather forecast, Adil craned his neck to look at the bedside clock.

“I’m due downstairs in fifteen minutes,” he said regretfully.

Toby’s arm tightened around him.

“The guests aren’t due until nine!”

“Mr Garland wants the bar ready by half-past eight in case of early arrivals; and there’s a hell of a lot to put on ice. Besides, you’ve got dinner in an hour.”

He removed his hand from the small of Toby’s back, and Toby sat up, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm.

“You will go steady tonight, won’t you?” Adil said cautiously. “I’ve never known someone get through as much champagne as you do and still be able to pick out their own jacket at the end of the night.”

“One of my many hard-won skills,” Toby said, but his expression had tightened slightly. He began to trace a steady figure of eight around Adil’s navel.

“It will be boring as hell,” he said, his brow furrowing, “And the music won’t be any good because Mother thinks most Glenn Miller sounds too _American_ , and everyone will be swarming around Freddie like wasps round a honeypot, and I’ll be stood there like a chump as their eyes slide down – quite literally, slide _down_ at least two inches, because they always look at him first – before I’m graced with their vacant smiles of indifference.”

The figure of eight had picked up pace.

“And he’ll be wearing that blasted uniform, as though he doesn’t own any other clothes, and he’ll still manage to be a better dancer than me even in those ridiculous boots-”

“Are you planning on dancing?” Adil interjected, momentarily delighted.

The movements of Toby’s fingers had become almost feverish.

“Of course not. I’d look a bloody fool. But I’d like to be better than him at _something_.”

 _I’d like you to love yourself the way I love you_ , Adil longed to say, and might have done so had it not been so hideously sentimental that Toby would have tried to push him off the bed again. Instead, he caught Toby’s frantic hand, and lifted it to press his lips against each finger; Toby sighed, and a little of the tension slipped from his shoulders.

“We’d better dress,” he said reluctantly. “I suppose I ought to have a bath.”

Adil groaned. “You shouldn’t say things like that when I’m about to leave. It’s criminal.”

Toby stretched out lazily. “If you recall, I did suggest we take a bath together, at which time you decided instead to rudely and violently assault me in the name of some crackpot American tradition.”

Adil fastened his belt. “If _you_ recall, you then went on to say that you hope you don’t have to wait until your next birthday to be assaulted again.”

Toby shot up off the bed.

“I warned you what would happen if you mocked me!” he said indignantly, though the corners of his mouth were twitching upwards.

Adil caught him around the waist and kissed him fiercely, pushing him back against the wardrobe. He felt a naked thigh slip between his clothed ones; Toby arched into him, and gasped into his mouth as Adil’s hand found its way to his backside once more.

“Can’t I pretend to take ill and we can just stay here?” he said breathlessly.

“I doubt Mr Garland could be convinced that ‘devoted nurse’ is part of my job description. And the cocktails won’t serve themselves.”

“It’s my birthday,” Toby said, eyes sparkling. “I intend to have something go my way.”

His mouth had curved into that delightfully toothy grin, and Adil was equal parts charmed and apprehensive; Sober Toby’s capacity for discretion was sub-par, but Drunk Toby could be downright lethal.

“Just- try to enjoy yourself, alright? Preferably not whilst completely Brahms and Liszt.”

The wolfish smiled became almost wicked.

“I’m afraid I simply can’t make any promises.”

***

Despite Toby’s grumbles, Adil knew he didn’t completely detest sharing a birthday. He scarcely enjoyed being the centre of attention, having had such little practice whilst under the thumb of his father, though there was of course a marked difference between enjoying the view from the grandstand and being cast as a footnote to one’s twin. He’d had far fewer bouts of melancholia since his father’s death, and his favoured forms of self-medication – drink, jazz, and cigarettes – had quickly been supplanted by sex. Their first time had been an uneven affair, and Toby had looked at Adil’s nether regions with a similar expression of alarm to that which Adil had seen on a newsreel about Dunkirk.

“Are you quite sure this is going to work?” he had asked doubtfully, and had remained so tense, flinching at every footstep in the corridor, that Adil had asked him again whether he was quite, quite sure. Yet afterwards, lying together, a flush high on both their cheeks and  a tight, twisting sensation in Adil’s chest, had felt far removed from any of his other encounters.

“I can do better,” Toby had said, their foreheads pressed together. “Anything you want.”

Adil had caught his hand, squeezing the fingers tightly.

“You’re everything I want,” he had said, and Toby had squeezed his hand back.

“I’ll be so good for you. I promise.”

Half an hour later, Toby had been his usual acerbic self, reclining in the bath with a cigarette with only the briefest of winces; but Adil had never forgotten the over-bright eyes, the rawness of his voice, for he knew that Toby had shown more of himself to him in those few minutes than he had ever shown to anyone.

“There you are, skipper!” Tom said, when he slipped through the door behind the bar. “Mr Garland wants the usual thirty ice-buckets for the dining room, and another thirty for the ballroom. And he’s asked for a trough for the champagne.”

“Where exactly are we supposed to put a trough?”

Tom shrugged. “Outside the door, I suppose, though one of us is bound to break an ankle. Oh, and he wants sixty bottles of the Veuve Clicquot on ice by eight o’clock.”

Adil raised his eyebrows. “We’ll be lucky if there’s anyone left standing after sixty bottles.”

“We’ll be lucky if Mr Hamilton’s left standing, the rate of knots he drinks. He’ll have drained a bottle before anyone else is on their second glass.”

Adil supposed he ought to jump to Toby’s defence, but in truth Tom wasn’t far off the mark; Toby consumed champagne at a speed almost on par with inhalation.

They cut through the kitchen and spent an hour in the ice-house, huddled in their mackintoshes as they chipped the huge blocks with blunted silver knives. They left the thirty buckets for the ballroom behind, and enlisted several of the kitchen staff to help carry the other thirty through to the dining room. Tom had been drafted in as a wine waiter at short notice, and so at seven-thirty, Adil was left alone to fill the trough with the sixty bottles of Veuve Cliquot, carrying crate after crate up from the wine cellar and out to the ice-house. He and Max heaved it through the kitchen at half-past eight, depositing it outside the door behind the bar. Adil flexed his fingers, which were numb and tingling from cold, and was straightening the cocktail glasses on their shelves when Tom cut across the dancefloor.

“There’s only eight of them at the top table,” he said, setting down his tray, and they began to swap the used glasses for clean ones. “Lady Hamilton, Lord Hamilton, Mr Hamilton, Lord and Lady Ashworth, the new Mrs Ashworth, Mr O’Hara, and a vicar.”

Adil almost dropped the glass he was holding.

“A vicar?” he spluttered. “What’s a vicar doing here?”

“Search me. Mr Hamilton doesn’t seem very happy about it.” Tom was grinning. “He had a glass of rosé with the entrée, two glasses of red with the main, and a glass of white with the pudding. Then brandy in his coffee. Mark my words, the only way we’ll get him out of here later is with a mop.”

Adil bit his lip.

“You’re on duty with me later, aren’t you?” he asked urgently.

“As soon as I’m finished in the dining room. Should be through around eleven. Why?”

Adil glanced around: the band was busy warming up, and the other bar staff were downstairs.

“During the party,” he said quietly, “If he wants a whiskey, I want you to make sure it has ice and water, even if he hasn’t asked for it. Same with brandy; any liquor you can get away with. If he questions it – and he won’t if he’s relatively sober, but he might when he’s drunk – just give me the nod and I’ll smooth things over.”

“Has Mr Garland put you up to this?”

“If he asks for gin,” Adil ploughed on, “Make sure it’s at least one part water. Cocktails should be fine, just plenty of ice. And he never drinks wine after dinner, so we shouldn’t have problems there.”

He placed the last of the clean glasses onto Tom’s tray.

“If he’s passed-out drunk by last orders then I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“Righto, skipper.”

Tom gave a little salute, and ducked out of the ballroom as Mr Garland crossed the floor.

“Everything ready to go, Mr Joshi?” he asked, tapping a fingernail against the surface of the bar. “Lady Cheevey’s car has just pulled up, so we’ll be starting at any moment.”

“I’ll rally the troops,” Adil said, and slipped downstairs with the tray of used glasses to round up his staff. There were five of them on duty for the party, not including Tom, and by the time he’d marched them all upstairs, still taking final drags of their cigarettes, Lady Cheevey and her two daughters were stood in the doorway of the ballroom.

“Lord and Lady Hamilton are still in the dining room,” Mr Garland was saying, “But if there is anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask at the bar.”

“The locusts are about to descend,” said Arthur, the eldest of the barmen, at the flurry of new voices in the lobby. “Any last words, boss?”

“Ice with everything,” Adil said grimly.

***

When Toby arrived in the ballroom at ten to nine, he looked remarkably steady on his feet.

“I slipped him another coffee,” Tom said into Adil’s ear, back for more clean glasses. “Black, no brandy. Seemed to blast a few cobwebs away.”

Adil smiled his thanks tightly. Toby looked sullen, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets as a man in a dog-collar talked at him animatedly. A wisp of hair had come loose from its slick, and the toss of his head as he tried to jolt it out of his eyes made it look as though he had a twitch.

By twenty-past nine, the ballroom was heaving. Toby and Freddie were in place by the door to greet the guests; Betsey was reeling off a rather bizarre song which seemed to be about woodpeckers, and they had already got through a bottle of gin.

“When do we bring out the trough?” Arthur asked loudly over the clamour.

“Not till Mr Garland gives the nod,” Adil shouted back, “And not until _he_ gets it from Lady H.”

“She must have scoured the pages of _Who’s Who_ to get this lot in.”

As Adil had expected, the guest-list was glittering. The Ashworths, of course, and plenty of older ladies and gentlemen whom Adil assumed were Lady Hamilton’s friends. Then there were younger men and women, perhaps their children, or Toby’s and Freddie’s schoolfellows. The vicar had now collared Mr O’Hara, and from the bar, Adil could see Toby hovering awkwardly by the door, attempting to blend into the mouldings as Freddie appeared deep in conversation with a couple who had just arrived. Lady Hamilton swept over to him, and must have said something, for Toby straightened up with a grimace, smiling blandly at the couple as they turned to him, shook his hand, and moved off. Freddie reached across the doorway to clap him on the shoulder, mouth moving, but Toby only glared moodily and thrust his hands back into his pockets.

It was an open bar, and Adil and the others were rushed off their feet. He made half a dozen Martinis in less than five minutes, and was in the process of mixing a Bloody Mary when a deafening roar from the doorway almost caused him to drop the tomato juice.

“Hamilton!” bellowed a group of male voices, and when Adil looked over, Toby had disappeared beneath a pack of black dinner jackets. Several guests glanced around, looking slightly alarmed, and when Toby finally resurfaced, he was being dragged towards the bar by four young men, Freddie hovering a little warily behind them.

“Hamilton, you sly dog!” one of them yelled, a tall, handsome boy with light brown hair and tortoiseshell glasses. He slapped Toby so enthusiastically on the back that he was almost catapulted into a bar stool. “Thought you could get away with not inviting us, eh?”

Toby was stammering, colour high on his face, though he looked pleased, if a little bemused.

“You’re lucky that brother of yours knows what’s what,” cut in another, who had broad shoulders and a slightly crooked nose, “Else you’d have been stuck here all night with-”

“Bloody hell, is that a _vicar_?” another interjected, who had a hint of a Welsh accent.

“Don’t let York spot him; we won’t see him for the rest of the night.”

“It’s lucky for you that your father’s so rich, Thompson, because you’ll never catch a girl with that sense of humour,” the shortest of them snapped.

“Not that I’m not glad to see you,” Toby hollered, before anyone else could speak, “But what on earth are you all doing here?”

“Your brother paid us a visit on Monday,” the broad-shouldered one said, “Whilst you were at the dentist. Said it was your birthday on Thursday and there was to be a soirée-”

“– To which, due to the machinations of your steel-hearted mother-”

“I don’t think he quite put it like that, Thompson.”

“To which, due to circumstances outside of your control, we were cordially _not_ invited,” the broad-shouldered one continued. “But he said if we turned up a little after kick-off-”

“– And as long as we were in black tie-”

“– Which was a struggle for Jones, who hasn’t been seen out of his work clothes since the third of September 1939-”

“– Then he’d be able to slip us in.”

“And so you decided to make a covert entrance,” Toby said drily, but he was smiling broadly. He turned to see Freddie still lingering behind them.

“Thank you,” he said, “For going to the trouble. You didn’t have to- on your week off-”

“It was Emma’s idea,” Freddie said, shrugging, but he was smiling too.

“Introduce us then, Hamilton,” the Welsh boy said. “We didn’t know he was a lord when we met him on Monday.”

Toby looked a little flustered. “Right, erm- Freddie, this is Cedric Jones,” he said, waving at the Welsh boy. “Leonard Cunningham.” He gestured to the broad-shouldered, crooked-nose boy. “Guy Thompson, and Michael York.” He indicated the tall, bespectacled boy and the short, sandy-haired one. “Jones and Cunningham were at Oxford a few years ahead of me, and Thompson and York were both at Cambridge. Gentlemen, this is my brother, Freddie Hamilton. He’s a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF.”

“How do you do,” Freddie said, and there was a great deal of vigorous hand-shaking.

“Many happy returns and all that,” Thompson said. “Miss Edwards sends her best, Hamilton, but she’s in Glasgow for the weekend. Her aunt’s suddenly been taken ill.”

Cunningham snorted. “Which is the genteel equivalent of ‘I’m washing my hair’.”

“Thompson asked her to come with him tonight,” York clarified in an undertone.

“You wouldn’t know a polite equivalent of anything, Cunningham, if it knelt down in front of you and su-”

“Anyone for a drink?” Toby interjected loudly.

Adil grinned from behind the row of clean glasses he’d been stacking, and had opened his mouth to ask for their order when Thompson spoke again.

“So how did it work at school?” he asked abruptly, turning back to Freddie. “You know, both of you being called Hamilton. Must have put the masters in quite a spin.”

“I was Hamilton Major,” Freddie said politely, “And Toby was Hamilton Minor.”

Thompson roared so loudly that even Bestey turned her head to look at him.

“Hamilton Minor!” he spluttered. “Sounds like a breed of fish! The tiny ones which open and close their mouths all the time.”

“Are you sure you aren’t thinking of yourself?” Jones said irritably.

“Guppies?” York offered.

“That’s it!”

“He can’t possibly be tiddly already,” Cunningham said, eying Thompson doubtfully.

“Thompson can get sloshed from _smelling_ a glass of single malt,” Jones said. “He’s almost as bad as you, Hamilton.”

“Hamilton Minor, you mean,” Thompson corrected.

“Well, at least I didn’t get sunkered,” Toby shot back.

Four heads swivelled in Thompson’s direction.

“You never!” York said, sounding awestruck.

“ _Almost_ sunkered,” Thompson said smugly, “And not from school. From Cambridge. Second year.”

“For what?”

“I tried to climb the chapel roof in the middle of the night.”

“What on earth for?”

“Just fancied it,” Thompson said with a shrug. “I was absolutely blotto, of course.”

“Of course,” Jones said drily.

“You’re lucky you didn’t crack your skull,” York said.

“He might’ve been better off,” Toby said darkly.

“Surely that’s sacrilegious?” York asked, rather anxiously. “Chapel roof?”

“York, shut up and get the drinks in,” Cunningham said.

“Why me?”

“Penalty for pi-jaw.”

“It’s an open bar, gentlemen,” Adil interjected helpfully.

“Though not a rugby pitch,” he heard Freddie say under his breath, as the boys whooped and hollered.

“Smashing! Right, we’ll have a whiskey and soda-”

“Make that two,” Toby said, with the flash of a smile.

“A gin and tonic.”

“A double brandy.”

“– And I’ll have the house white please,” York said, a little shyly.

“You can’t have _wine_ , York!” Thompson crowed. “You aren’t at Holy Communion.”

“Do you always talk such utter rot, Thompson, or do you reserve that pleasure for the present company?”

“And we’ll have a bottle of vodka for the table,” Cunningham added.

Adil almost choked.

“I- we aren’t really serving bottles tonight, sir,” he said, and looked at Toby a little helplessly.

Toby glanced around, but when he saw that Freddie was engaged with Mr O’Hara, he turned back to the bar with a filthy grin.

“If Mr Garland takes issue, send him to me. But we’ll take the bottle.”

The boys cheered again, and Adil’s knees almost buckled beneath him when Cunningham reached across the bar to clap him heartily on the shoulder

“Come on, then,” Jones said, in a tone that suggested he couldn’t quite help himself. “Tell us how you got out of the sunkering.”

Thompson’s voice was airy as he began to lead the group towards a table. “Well, it didn’t do any harm that Father had funded the repair of the very same roof the previous term.”

“Nepotism! A cad’s trick.”

“I prefer to think of it as utilising one’s connections.”

“This _is_ alright, isn’t it?” Toby asked anxiously, the moment they were out of earshot. “I’ll replace it if you think Mr Garland will mind.”

“It’s not a problem,” Adil said, reaching for two crystal tumblers. “But I hope you know that the only person I intend to peel off the floor tonight is you.”

“I’d like to see you try to peel Cunningham off the floor. He played rugby for Oxford.”

And so for all of Adil’s good intentions, over the course of the evening Toby proceeded to become the drunkest Adil had ever seen him. It was now a little under three years since he had started at The Halcyon, in the April of 1938, and over that time, he had come to learn Toby’s alcohol limits rather better than Toby had himself. One or two drinks had little to no effect; three might provoke more bite to his sarcasm. Four, and he was sullen; five and six, political; seven, melancholic. By eight, his thoughts had usually turned to his father, and his jaw would set itself in a hard line. Whilst Freddie had occasionally been seen to stumble out of the ballroom after a session, Toby seemed to become _more_ coordinated the further gone he was; his shoulders would hunch in upon themselves, his back a stiff, bony curve, and he wouldn’t look up from the surface of the bar except to catch the barman’s eye and ask for another. Eight was his record; Adil hadn’t known him to manage more, not in The Halcyon at any rate. But Toby was unused to mixing drinks, and after four glasses of wine, a shot of brandy, and a scotch and soda, the usual scale of measurements proved ineffectual. Mr Garland had eventually asked for the champagne, and, as Tom had predicted, Toby consumed almost an entire bottle. He and his friends from the office ordered in rounds, so it was impossible for Adil to water down the correct drink, and each time he looked over, Toby never had the same glass in his hand. The table was crammed with cocktail glasses, whiskey tumblers, wine glasses, champagne flutes, a thick haze of cigarette smoke hanging above their heads, and Mr Garland had slipped over to them more than once when their laughter had threatened to drown out the music. Freddie looked as though he was severely regretting extending the hand of friendship, and it was fortunate, Adil supposed, that Lady Hamilton had had enough sherry to be sufficiently occupied with Lady Ashworth.

“Any more and he’ll need a dip in the ice trough,” Tom said gleefully, nodding at Toby, who was, by Adil’s estimation, on his tenth drink. It had only just gone eleven o’clock.

“He’ll be fine,” Adil said doubtfully. The bottle of vodka was almost empty, and all five gentlemen were due at the office the following morning.

“I say, there isn’t any more champagne, is there?” a Welsh voice asked, and Adil looked over to see Jones leaning on the bar. Of the five of them, he appeared the most collected, although his accent had thickened, and there was a damp patch on his sleeve where he appeared to have placed his elbow in a spilled drink.

“None on ice, sir,” Adil said truthfully. There were over two hundred guests at the party, but the trough of champagne had emptied within an hour.

“Not to worry. What cocktails can you recommend? Or rather, what would look the most ridiculous in Cunningham’s great paw?”

“The Mojito is very good, sir,” Tom said. “White rum, lime, and soda. Cuban.”

“Decent chaps, the Cubans. Does it come with one of those funny umbrellas?”

“It doesn’t, I’m afraid, sir.”

“Drat. York!” Jones bellowed over his shoulder. “Come over here.”

York ambled over obligingly. He was rather pink in the face, and his sandy hair was breaking free of its slick and curling about his ears.

“You’re better with cocktails than I am. Sort us something out, would you?”

“We’ll take whatever you recommend,” York said, as Jones strode back to the table. “You can tell he was in the gods, can’t you?”

Tom had moved away to serve Lady Cheevey’s daughters, and Adil blinked.

“The gods, sir?” he asked.

“Twenty Two,” York said, as though this clarified the matter. When Adil still looked blank, his face grew a little pinker.

“How foolish of me,” he said, suddenly looking rather uncomfortable. “I don’t suppose- that is- it’s something we have at the public schools,” he finished lamely. “Not that I’m-”

“It’s quite alright, sir,” Adil said lightly. “I think it’s safe to assume that I didn’t go to public school.”

“Well,” York said awkwardly, “The gods was the nickname for Twenty Two. In one’s final year, the House Master would choose a chap to be Head of House to oversee the running of things. The Head of House would choose a deputy, then a second; there were eight houses at my particular school, so the eight Heads of House and their deputies would make up sixteen members of Twenty Two. Then the eight seconds would battle it out for the other six places. The remaining final year chaps would be house prefects.”

Adil began to slice a lime. “I see. And what did Twenty Two do, sir?”

“Run each of the houses. Take roll-call. Supervise the prefects. House discipline.”

“Then what was the House Master for, sir?”

“Oh, he was kept out of things as far as possible,” York said, gesturing airily. “If you were in a jam, the House Master could sunker you; the worst Twenty Two would do was give you a thrashing. The House Masters were quite happy to leave us to it. Hamilton was forever getting thrashed for sneaking into the library after hours.”

Adil looked up in surprise. “You were at school with To- Mr Hamilton?”

“In a manner of speaking. I was two years below him and Freddie, so I rarely saw him. We never knew each other really, not until we started at Whitehall.”

Adil reached for the rum. “I suppose he and Lord Hamilton were in this Twenty Two?”

York suddenly looked uncomfortable again. “Freddie was Head of House, of course,” he said darkly. “Toby was just a regular house prefect.”

“He wasn’t his deputy?”

York’s expression was grim. “He wasn’t even his second.”

Adil recalled how, before their father’s death, the brothers had seemed to be forever at loggerheads, and found he wasn’t surprised. York, who had been leaning conspiratorially across the bar, straightened up.

“I don’t think Hamilton minded,” he said thoughtfully. “Twenty Two had to wear special waistcoats and buttonholes, and sit at the front of the chapel and things. Hamilton was never the type to like people looking at him. Once, the House Master tried to cast him as Miranda when we put on _The Tempest_ , because he’s so thin, and he sat outside all night in only his pyjamas, and got such terrible influenza that they had to cast someone else. Jolly clever trick, we all thought.”

“Jolly clever,” Adil said distractedly. He chanced a glance over at Toby, whose expression was earnest as he spoke to the other three boys, a glass of what looked like gin clutched in his right hand. It was perhaps the first time Adil had seen him receive the full attention of more than one person at a time; the knowledge startled him.

“I say,” York said, and Adil’s attention snapped back to him, “I did want to ask you something, actually. About Hamilton.”

Adil endeavoured to keep his face neutral as he measured out the sugar.

“You might find Lord Hamilton a better source of knowledge, sir,” he said carefully.

“Well, that’s just it,” York said. He had lent in again, his voice so low that Adil had to move closer to the bar to hear him. “We’ve brought it up with Hamilton himself, of course, but it’s like getting blood from a stone. And, well, barmen know everything, don’t they?”

“Do they, sir?”

“The walls have eyes and all that. Or is it ears? Anyway, the chaps and I had a conference while Hamilton was at the dentist, and I’m the designated spokesman.”

He glanced about him, a little theatrically.

“We wondered if you’d noticed anything rummy going on around here.”

“You’ll have to be more specific, sir,” Adil said, after a beat.

“Anything suspicious. Anything underhand. Anything which might need investigating.”

Adil’s hands shook as he picked up the slices of lime.

“Pertaining to Mr Hamilton, sir?”

“He’s been off-colour for months now,” York said sagely. “He always looks tired, as though he hardly sleeps. He has these huge dark circles under his eyes. He blames it on the air-raids, but the rest of us don’t look dead on our feet each morning.”

Adil stirred the first glass vigorously with a long silver spoon.

“I gather he’s very overworked,” he said, a little too quickly. “He needs a holiday.”

“Don’t we all? But it isn’t just that; then there are the marks.”

Adil looked hard at the second glass.

“Marks, sir?” he said, his voice slightly strangled.

“On his neck. Red usually, but sometimes bruises. Sometimes we can see them over the collar of his shirt. Thompson got all vulgar, of course, started making jokes about a secret woman he had hidden away in the servants’ quarters, but Hamilton denies it every time it’s brought up. And then last week I saw red marks on his wrists.”

Adil almost knocked the third glass over. He was doubtful that he’d ever be able to look at that particular tie in quite the same way again. Certainly when Toby had worn it down to breakfast the next morning, he’d had to excuse himself to the wine cellar post-haste.

“I don’t want to pry, and he very well may have a girl on the quiet, but then we can’t understand why he’d hide it. Unless she isn’t quite the right sort, of course, but it isn’t as though we’d tell his mother. And you see, he said something a few months ago…”

York bit his lip and trailed off. Adil finished stirring the final glass.

“I don’t want to break a confidence… But you all must have known it was going on?”

Adil said nothing, simply began to place the glasses on a tray. York sighed.

“Well, a few months ago, we all went for a drink after work, and everyone was a little tiddly, Hamilton more than anyone- and so I don’t think he _meant_ to, but he said one or two things about his late father that rather put the wind up everyone.”

Adil looked up sharply.

“We’ve all caught it from our fathers, of course,” York said, “But this sounded rather more than a clip round the ear. Certainly he sounded rather a bully. And I- he just gets so twitchy whenever anyone mentions it, and with the bruises and the tiredness, we thought- because he and his brother have never seen eye to eye, not from what I saw of them at school, so we thought perhaps _he_ …”

York let the sentence hang meaningfully, but Adil was so overcome by the rush of relief that it took him several moments to form a coherent sentence.

“No,” he said eventually, “No, it isn’t anything like that, I can assure you. He and Lord Hamilton have been getting on very well since- in recent months, and Lord Hamilton himself is rarely here. But it’s so-” Adil broke off, in case he said too much. “He’d be so pleased to know you’ve all been thinking of him, sir,” he said finally.

York’s face sagged with relief. “Thank heavens,” he said. “He must just be shy about his girl. I admit, the idea did seem a little far-fetched, but Thompson was so sure there was something fishy going on. I suppose it _was_ decent of Freddie to drop in and invite us.”

He took a gulp of the closest Mojito, as though to steady himself.

“Shall I bring these over, sir?” Adil asked.

“No need.” York took the tray from him. “Thank you, Mr-?”

“Joshi.”

“Thank you, Mr Joshi. You’ve been a terrific help.”

“Not at all, sir.”

***

At midnight, the band stopped playing, and Freddie was pushed up onto the stage to make a speech. They were running low on gin, and Adil used the lull to slip downstairs to the wine store. The corridor was deserted, and Adil yawned idly as he stretched up for a bottle of Gordon’s.

“You’re so lovely.”

Adil jumped violently. Toby was lolling against the shelves, hands in his trouser pockets, legs crossed at the ankles. He had abandoned his dinner jacket, and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his shirt open at the neck and his bow tie hanging loose. His grin was lop-sided.

Adil replaced the gin, very carefully, on the shelf.

“You’d better not let your mother see you like that,” he said, his voice a little higher than usual.

“S’no need to worry about her,” Toby said. His voice had taken on a frank, boyish quality. “She’s drunk a s’a monkey.”

“Said the pot to the kettle.”

Toby’s grin stretched impossibly wide. “Wanna sex you,” he said brightly, and Adil almost choked. “Quick, while everyone s’upstairs.”

“No sexual favours on duty,” Adil said, once he had found his voice again. “I’m a professional.”

Toby began to stalk towards him, weaving a little, and Adil was sincerely thankful he had replaced the bottle of gin when hands grasped clumsily at his face. He was enveloped in the scent of liquor and eau de cologne as Toby pressed his lips against his jaw.

“ _You_ can sex _me_ then,” he murmured against his throat, and the vibrations shot straight to Adil’s groin. “I’m eggscellent at sexual favours.”

He moved down Adil’s neck, his kisses wet and noisy, but his hands moved frantically up Adil’s sides, and Adil found himself pushed back against the shelves.

“How many have you had?” Adil groaned, a hand fisting in Toby’s hair of its own volition.

“Everyone s’upstairs,” Toby said again, moving back up Adil’s neck. “No-one will know. It’ll be fun.”

“I’m sure,” Adil said, though it came out a little breathless. He gave Toby’s hair a gentle tug. “Though I don’t think that justification would appease your mother.”

Warm breath tickled his earlobe. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it,” he said. They were moving against each other now, and Adil’s hands dropped from Toby’s hair to clutch at his hips. “I have. In th’evenings, when we’re both in the bar, catch you looking at me wi’ those eyes-”

“What eyes?”

“The _sex_ eyes,” Toby said impatiently. “You look at me wi’ the sex eyes, and I think, I think, I want you to come over, a-and pull my book out of my hands, and take me right there over the table.”

Adil dropped his head onto Toby’s shoulders, and took deep, steady breaths, thinking very hard about the mice infestation in his flat.

“You’re a lunatic,” he said weakly. “Drink has addled your wits.”

“You’d like it, wouldn’t you? Layin’ your claim. Showin’ everyone who owns me.”

“Stop, stop, stop,” Adil croaked, crumpling Toby’s dress shirt in his fists. His eyes fluttered open as Toby pulled back.

“You _would_ like it,” he said delightedly, and if Adil hadn’t been made of sterner stuff, he might have grabbed him and kissed the smug look from his face.

“We’re missing the speeches,” he said, with tremendous effort. “Get back upstairs.”

He’d said it jokingly, but Toby’s expression turned hungry and he lunged back in.

“Love it when y’tell me what to do,” he said hoarsely, and his hands moved frantically across Adil’s chest, dipping inside his jacket and tugging at his shirt buttons. “Makes my insides feel all funny.” He pressed a fierce, filthy kiss to Adil’s mouth. “Haven’t stopped thinkin’ about what you did earlier. Almost had to go to the gents’.”

Heat flared sharply behind Adil’s navel, but the small portion of his brain not yet muddled by lust prompted him to take hold of Toby’s wrists and disentangle them gently from his chest. His grip was firm, and when he looked back at Toby’s face, his pupils had blown impossibly wide; with a thunk, as though his strings had been cut, he fell to his knees. He pulled his wrists free, for Adil’s grip had gone slack with shock, and began to fiddle with the fastenings of Adil’s trousers.

“Toby!” Adil hissed, trying desperately to picture the mice again. “Toby, what are you doing?”

“Reading the gas meter,” Toby said, without missing a beat, but his fingers fumbled badly with Adil’s belt, and Adil dropped to his own knees, ignoring Toby’s noise of protest.

“You’re probably the drunkest man in London right now,” he said, as evenly as he could, and grabbed Toby’s hands again, which had strayed back to his belt.

“Y’told me to enjoy myself,” Toby reminded him.

“And if you’re caught enjoying yourself, they’ll put me on an assault charge.”

“They say danger s’an aphru- aphra-” Toby broke off, his brow furrowing in concentration, “Aphrodishack,” he said triumphantly.

“I’ll remind you of that the next time you hyperventilate when I kiss you in the lift.”

There was the sound of a door opening nearby, and a faint hum of noise.

“Skipper?” Tom’s voice called from the other side of the wine store. “Have you got that gin? They’re baying for blood out here.”

To his horror, Toby opened his mouth, as though to respond, and Adil’s hand flew out to cover it.

“Just coming!” he called back, swallowing a yelp as Toby began to press little licks against his palm. “Won’t be a minute.”

There was the sound of the door swinging shut, and the passage was quiet again. Toby blinked at him innocuously.

“Alright,” Adil said, keeping his hand firmly over Toby’s mouth, “You like it when I tell you what to do? Go up the back stairs and back to the party. Then I want you to go to the bar and ask Tom for a glass of water. And whiskey with water doesn’t count.”

He removed his hand from Toby’s mouth, and ran the back of it tenderly across his cheek.

“Let yourself sober up for half an hour, then I’ll make you a Martini.”

“I don’t know,” Toby said, looking supremely pleased with himself, “Half an hour s’long time. Maybe I’ll have another vodka instead.” He smiled slyly. “That _looks_ like water.”

“If Tom tells me you’ve so much as looked at the vodka bottle then I really will have to spank you again.”

It was all part of the game, of course; Adil had absolutely no desire to regulate Toby’s behaviour, even if, for the sake of Toby’s liver and his own nerves, he wished he would slow down. But Toby’s eyes flashed again, and his smile became positively feral.

“Is that s’posed to be a deterrent or an incentive?” he asked cheekily, and grabbed Adil’s chin for a final, close-mouthed kiss, before hauling himself gracelessly to his feet.

“Water, remember!” Adil called after him, as loudly as he dared, as Toby zigzagged along the corridor.

“Yes, Sergeant!”

Adil was required to spend almost three full minutes thinking ferociously of the mice before he was in a fit state to return to the bar.

***

When the alarm clock rang at half-past five the following morning, Adil awoke with the feeling of having been struck over the head with something rather heavy. The party had begun to wind down after the speeches, but then Sonny had been coaxed into playing _Land of Hope and Glory_ , which had bled into _Jerusalem_ , and by the time he had reached _God Save the King_ almost the entire assembly had been sobbing, clutching at each other for support as they thrust their glasses high into the air and sang loud enough to be heard on the road.

The last of the guests had not departed until almost two o’clock, and Adil and the other bar staff had been cleaning up the worst of the mess until after three. The maids would finish up this morning, before the bar re-opened at noon, and Adil was not on duty again until five o’clock that evening; but he hadn’t been able to face the walk back to Paddington, and had slipped upstairs to where Toby, still in shirt and trousers, lay asleep on top of the bedclothes. Adil had slipped off his dress shoes, but otherwise it had seemed kinder to let him sleep. He had planned to slip away quietly in the morning, allow Toby another hour’s rest, but there was a faint groan from beside him as he reached out to silence the alarm clock.

“Adil,” a voice croaked. “What time is it?”

“Half-past five.”

There was another groan. “Bloody hell.”

“Go back to sleep.” Adil leaned over to press a quick kiss to the back of his neck. “I’ve re-set the alarm for seven. I need to slip out before the maids arrive.”

Toby uncurled from the tight ball he was hunched in, and rolled over, torturously slowly, to face Adil, though he kept his eyes clamped firmly shut. His clothes were hideously creased.

“Go back to sleep,” Adil said again. He stood up slowly, and his joints ached from spending almost ten hours on his feet. He fumbled for his clothes in the dark.

“Adil, I think I might be dying.”

Adil swore under his breath as he stubbed his toe on a leg of the bed.

“I’m sure you’ll pull through,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I wouldn’t put money on it.”

Toby coughed wheezily, then stretched out blindly for the bedside lamp.

“Leave it,” Adil said quickly. “Else you won’t get back to sleep.”

“How much did I have to drink?” Toby asked hoarsely.

“I lost count after the fifteenth.”

“Oh, God.”

“Not including the bottle of champagne.”

“Oh, _God_.”

“I think you may have set a new personal best.”

Adil shrugged his jacket on, slipping his bow-tie into his pocket.

“Were my friends from the office here, or was that a dream?”

Adil sat on the edge of the bed to tie his shoelaces.

“They were here,” he said, “Although Mr Garland came close to throwing them out. Apparently they started to heckle during Freddie’s speech.”

Toby gave a faint huff of laughter, and his eyes opened a fraction.

“What did they say?”

“I’ve no idea. I was busy fending off a proposition.”

Toby’s eyes opened properly. “From whom?” he demanded, sounding as incensed as his scratchy throat would permit.

“Your friend Jones,” Adil said, straight-faced. “And with that accent, he really was difficult to resist.”

Toby looked equal parts appalled and impressed.

“Relax,” Adil said, resting a hand on his shoulder, “It was only you.”

Toby looked even more horrified.

“No-one heard, did they?” He began to sit up, his bloodshot eyes widening in panic. “Oh, Christ, no-one _saw_?”

Adil pressed him back down gently. “No-one heard, no-one saw,” he said soothingly. “It was in the wine store. Everyone else was upstairs. As you were so keen to point out.”

He brushed Toby’s hair back from his forehead.

“You know you have an absolutely filthy mouth on you when you’re drunk?”

Toby groaned again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, colouring. “Forget everything I said.”

“But some of it was _fascinating_.”

Toby hid his face in the pillow, and Adil took pity on him. He began to run his hand lightly over Toby’s hair.

“I left a note for Arthur to bring a Beecham’s Powder and some water with your coffee. He’ll be up around half-past seven.”

“You’re an angel,” Toby said. He squinted up from the pillow. “I hope I didn’t make things awkward for you last night.”

“Not at all. Try to get a little more sleep if you can, and make sure you eat something.”

Toby began to walk his fingers up Adil’s side.

“Are you in later?”

“Five till nine. When will you be back?”

“Not before seven. Will you come up afterwards?”

“If you’re still awake.”

Toby prodded at Adil’s ribs.

“Make sure _you_ get some sleep,” he said sternly. “I thought we might go out on Saturday, if I’m still alive. It’s still your night off, isn’t it? There’s a place in Covent Garden-”

“Actually,” Adil interjected, “I’ve, er- I’ve made plans for Saturday.”

Toby’s face fell, but he covered it almost immediately.

“Not to worry,” he said, smiling. “I suppose I can’t have you all to myself.”

“No, I mean I’ve made plans for us. The two of us.” Adil smiled back. “A surprise.”

“A surprise,” Toby repeated. He suddenly sounded wary. “What should I wear for this surprise?”

“Anything you like.”

Toby clicked his tongue impatiently. “Black tie? White tie?” A beat. “Any tie at all?”

“It really doesn’t matter. Anything you don’t mind getting sweaty,” he added as an afterthought.

Toby looked a little alarmed. “You aren’t taking me running, are you?” he asked suspiciously. “Because I’ll be frank with you, the only places I run to are the bar, the library, and the Anderson shelter. In that order.”

Adil kissed his cheek quickly. “Trust me. It will be fun. I promise.”

***

Adil clocked off at seven o’clock on Saturday night. He had arranged to meet Toby directly in Shoreditch, lest they be recognised together on the Underground. He changed quickly, stuffing his uniform into his locker, and as the Tube was relatively quiet, he emerged onto the pavement just before seven-thirty. Toby was already waiting by the railings, and they took dinner in a small pub named The Bricklayers Arms. Toby still looked a little the worse for wear; he had spent the latter half of the previous evening with his head in Adil’s lap, his face wan as he sweated out his hangover.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a longer day at work,” he had said croakily, eyes closed against the glare of the lamp. “Thompson was sick over his typewriter the minute Sally brought round the elevenses, then we lost York to a dead faint because apparently he can’t stand the smell of vomit. So we were two men down by lunchtime, and the C.O. was spitting feathers because it turns out Miss Edwards really _is_ in Glasgow, and he had to make do with the new man from the office next door who laughs like a donkey.”

As it was, they drank dandelion and burdock with their food, and as the evening wore on, Toby began to look a little brighter. It still felt peculiar to see him outside of the hotel; they had dined out before, but Toby usually chose, having connections in convenient places, and the restaurants were only a trifle less grand than the dining room at The Halcyon. They had never visited the pictures, deeming it too risky, but Toby had taken him to a concert once; Gershwin, of course, and he had lent so far over the balcony of the dress circle during _Rhapsody in Blue_ that he had been in danger of falling headlong into the stalls.

“How are you feeling?” Adil asked, once the waitress had taken their pudding plates.

“Fine,” Toby said. He lit up a cigarette, and after a moment he tilted back on his chair and began to blow smoke rings into the air. Adil adored him like this: relaxed, loose-limbed, an air of assuredness about him which always seemed brittle within the confines of the hotel. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. Are you tired?”

Toby’s face was slightly blurred by the haze of smoke. “Not particularly. Why? Am I about to get sweaty?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Yesterday morning. You said I should dress for sweat.” Toby dropped back onto all four chair legs. “And here I am. Open collar. No mackintosh. My mother would be appalled.”

If Adil reached across the table and undid one more of Toby’s shirt buttons, he knew he would see the purple mark he had placed there on Thursday night.

“I don’t mind if you want to head straight back to Paddington, but there’s somewhere I thought we might go first. If you’re interested.”

Toby took a drag of his cigarette in the way Adil knew he thought made him look mysterious and sophisticated, but in actuality creased his forehead in concentration to the extent that he appeared to be solving a rather difficult mental arithmetic problem.

“Is this _you_ propositioning _me_ now?”

“Actually, it’s your birthday present.”

Toby blinked. “I told you not to get me anything.”

“I know,” Adil said, and made to reach across the table to take his hand, before remembering where they were and instead seizing the salt shaker. “And I haven’t, not exactly. It’s more something I’ve- found.”

“Found?”

“But we don’t have to if you’re still feeling delicate.”

Toby bristled. “I’m still young enough to shake off a hangover, thank you. In any case, this sounds intriguing. You aren’t on duty tomorrow, are you?”

Adil shook his head.

“Smashing. I’ve cried off church – I told Mother I was staying at Cunningham’s – so we can stay out as long as we like.”

His eyes glittered as he stubbed out his cigarette.

“Shall we get the bill?”

“I had an interesting conversation with one of your friends at the party,” Adil said, as they stepped out onto the pavement. Headlights loomed eerily through the smog, and they set off at a brisk walk, pulling their jackets tighter about them.

“Oh?” The flame of Toby’s lighter cast shadows on his face as he lit up again. “You’ll learn never to take anything Thompson says seriously.”

“No, I don’t think it was Thompson. Short, blonde-ish hair, drank wine?”

“Oh, York?” Toby offered him the cigarette, but Adil shook his head. “What did he want?”

“He wanted to know whether Freddie was beating you.”

Toby inhaled too sharply, and almost choked on a lungful of smoke. “I beg your pardon?”

Adil banged him on the back. “He said they’ve noticed the marks on your neck, and he knows you and Freddie didn’t really get on at school, so they made an educated guess.”

Toby took another, careful, drag. “How bizarre. Why did he ask you?”

“A barman knows everything, apparently.”

Toby looked pensive.

“It was kind of him to invite them,” he said, after a pause. “Even if it was Emma’s idea. You know, I think Father’s death was the making of us. We were always in competition, somehow, when he was alive, even though we’re so different. But I think we understand each other better now.”

Adil brushed their hands together.

“Well, now they’re all certain you’ve got a secret girlfriend.”

“Oh, they’ve been banging on about that for weeks.”

“You could tell them she’s very shy?” Adil suggested. “Isn’t up to meeting them?”

“It’s difficult,” Toby said slowly. “I’m no good at lying, but I don’t particularly like lying either. I think lies always come out in the end.”

He exhaled thoughtfully.

“I suppose, if they don’t see any more marks, they might forget about it? Then I wouldn’t have to lie at all.”

Adil gave a mock-sigh of resignation.

“From here on in, I shall focus my attentions on the regions south of your collarbone,” he said, and Toby hummed his assent.

The roads had begun to fill with taxis, and music and voices spilled out onto the pavement as doors opened and closed. The smog had thickened, but Adil was glad it was not a clear night; there was less chance of an air-raid.

“It’s bloody freezing,” Toby said, after they had been walking for fifteen minutes. He blew on his hands. “You said to dress for sweat.”

“Almost there,” Adil said, though without the light of the gas-lamps, he wasn’t entirely sure he had turned down the correct side-street. They doubled back, and Adil squinted through the gloom as they hovered at the side of the road.

“What are we looking for?”

“Temple Street,” Adil said. “I thought this was it, but it’s been so long since-”

“Temple Street’s back there,” Toby interjected, pointing behind him. “There was a pub on the corner: The Temple Inn.”

They headed back the way they had come, until Adil could see the lamps of The Temple Inn fifty yards ahead. They narrowly avoided being knocked into the road by a group of rowdy sailors, and Adil caught Toby’s sleeve, tugging him into the mouth of the alley.

“Aren’t we going into the pub?”

“I can do you one better.”

Adil’s chest thumped with excitement. He hadn’t been here since the summer of 1940, before the air-raids had made it dangerous to venture out at nights, though he’d walked past it on his last day off, just to make sure it was still there.

They walked further into the alley. It was black as pitch now, with buildings rising high on both sides, and only the guttering lights of the pub behind them to guide them.

“I know I’ve been wired lately, but I don’t need a visit to an opium den,” Toby whispered, and Adil could tell from the way he had shuffled closer to him that he was only half-joking.

“Could I borrow your lighter?” he whispered back. “I can’t quite see…”

Toby handed it over, his fingers icy. Adil clutched them in his free hand, and flicked the lighter with the other. He blinked against the glare, then felt a rush of relief as he saw a rickety metal fire-escape a few feet ahead of them. He pulled Toby forwards, and when they reached the other side of the fire-escape, he knocked four times, slowly, on a small door which had been painted to blend in with the brick. He felt Toby attempt to disentangle their hands, but he held firm as a slat, placed where an eye-hole might be on a normal front door, slid open.

“Didn’t you see the sign?” a low, gruff voice said through the slat. “No salesmen.”

“That’s alright,” Adil said calmly, as Toby’s attempts to disentangle their hands became more frantic, “We’re the Queen’s Men.”

There was a beat, and the slat closed with a rattle which echoed off the walls of the alley. Then there was a scrabbling sound, and the door cracked open.

“Just the two of you?” the voice asked.

“Just two.”

“Been here before?”

“I have. He hasn’t.”

There was a grunt, before the door swung open properly.

“Get in then, before we all freeze our bollocks off.”

Adil pushed Toby through in front of him, and they had hardly crossed the threshold when it was slammed shut behind them.

“Coats?” the gruff voice said. It belonged to a tall man, perhaps in his early forties, with a scruff of beard and dark hair greying at the temples.

Adil shook his head. They were stood at one end of a long, dark corridor, with a low ceiling and no windows. Large posters hung in frames on the exposed brick walls, but the lamps were too dim for Adil to see whether they were the same as the last time he had come.

“Only three rules,” the man said, as he picked up a book from a chair beside the door. “No fighting, no fondling, and no fucking. Understood?”

Beside him, Toby cleared his throat.

“Understood,” Adil said.

“Last orders at one-thirty.” The man sat down in the chair, rifling through the book to find his page. “Just down the corridor and on your right.”

“Thanks,” Adil said, and all but dragged Toby with him. Their dress shoes clacked loudly on the stone floor, but as they moved further away from the doorman, they began to hear the faint buzz of music.

“Where exactly are we?” Toby’s voice was far higher than usual. “Have I been brought as a sacrifice to a savage mating ritual?”

“No, you heard what he said,” Adil said casually, “No fucking allowed.”

“Adil!”

Toby yanked his arm back, and his hand slipped free from Adil’s grasp.

“Adil, what the devil is going on?” Toby hissed indignantly. “You’ve dragged me to the bowels of bloody Shoreditch in the freezing cold without giving me the faintest idea-”

“Do you trust me?” Adil interjected. Even in the poor light, he could see Toby glowering.

“Against my better judgement,” he said darkly, but there was no real bite to it.

“Then just wait,” Adil said evenly. “I said I had a surprise, and this is it. I promise you’re going to like it. You just need to trust me for another-” he squinted along the corridor- “Two hundred yards.”

Toby still looked apprehensive, but after a moment, he thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers and nodded at Adil, as though in challenge, to lead the way. Feeling daring, Adil placed a hand on the small of his back, and pushed him gently forwards.

Toby was strung tight with tension under his hand. They reached the end of the corridor, and, as the doorman had said, there was a door on their right, also painted to blend in with the brickwork. The throb of music had grown louder, and placing his palm flat where the handle ought to be, Adil pushed the door open and prodded Toby through.

They were hit by a wave of heat. Like the corridor, the room was low-ceilinged and windowless, but the brick walls had been painted black, and they glistened with condensation. They were lined with rows of small lamps, each covered in a tiny, mismatched shade, so that the room glowed with spots of gold and rose and aubergine light. Opposite the door was a bar, behind which were shelves stacked haphazardly with glasses and ice buckets and bottles of liquor. At the far end of the room, a band played on a small stage, and whilst round tables and velvet-covered chairs had been arranged untidily in corners, the centre of the room had been marked out as a dancefloor. It might not have looked different to any other backstreet club, except that the room was filled entirely with men. Tall men, short men, men in groups, men alone; men with grey hair, men with blonde hair, men with no hair at all; men who looked old enough to be their fathers, men who looked young enough to still be at school; slender men with painted faces, bangles and bracelets clinking on their arms; large men puffing on cigars, wiping the sweat from their brows with handkerchiefs; men in suits, men in uniform, one man in a flowing silk kimono; men holding drinks, holding cigarettes, holding hands-

“Oh, God,” Toby said faintly beside him.

“Happy birthday, darling,” Adil said in delight.

Toby turned to him, his expression stricken. “Oh, God,” he said again, “Oh, God, Adil, we can’t- we can’t be here. _I_ can’t be here.”

He stepped away, as though to move back through the door, but Adil caught his arm.

“Toby, it’s alright,” he said reassuringly. “I’ve been here before. It’s alright.”

“No, it isn’t!” Toby’s eyes were wide with panic. “Adil, if anyone found out I even knew this place existed I could lose my job.”

“No-one will know.”

“What if we’re seen? What if we’re recognised?”

“How could anyone do anything without implicating themselves?”

Toby paused. His brow creased, as though he were weighing the matter up.

“Think about it, darling,” Adil said quickly. “If anyone here does recognise you – and they won’t – but if they do, they wouldn’t dare to make life difficult for you. You could make it as difficult for them right back.”

“If there’s an air-raid-” Toby said weakly.

“There’s a public shelter two streets away.”

“If there’s a _police_ raid-”

“That’s what the doorman is for.” Adil stepped back against the wall, tugging Toby with him, to allow two men to slip past them out of the door. “‘Queen’s Men’ is the password, so no-one can get in who doesn’t know exactly what this place is. If the police _do_ turn up, and they never have before, then the doorman presses a bell, which rings in here-” He directed Toby’s attention to the large metal disc, like a school fire-bell, hung above the door- “And then we have the time it takes to walk the length of that corridor to make sure we’re respectable before anyone bursts in. Look, we don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” he continued, as Toby bit his lip, “I just thought it would be fun. You’ve been working so hard, and I wanted the chance to be- well, _us_ \- outside of our bedrooms.”

Toby’s eyes darted nervously about the room.

“You say you’ve been here before?” he asked uncertainly.

“Several times.”

“Can I use a false name? If anyone asks?”

“Most people do.”

Toby was still looking unsure when the band struck up _Little Brown Jug_.

“Glenn Miller,” he said, his expression relaxing a fraction.

“The music’s good and the alcohol is cheap.” Adil grasped his shoulder. “One drink? And if you aren’t having a good time then we can head back to Paddington.”

Toby insisted on paying for the first round, and they settled into a shadowy corner, each with a gin and vermouth, as the dancefloor began to fill. For the first ten minutes, Toby sat bolt upright, cigarette clutched tightly between his fingers. When Adil rested a casual hand on his knee, he flinched violently, but didn’t shake him off, and Adil began to rub soothing circles against the flesh with his thumb. A little of the tension slipped from his shoulders, and when Adil’s hand slid upwards slightly, towards his thigh, Adil heard his breath catch.

He was content to sit quietly, watching Toby out of the corner of his eye as his gaze swivelled back and forth across the room. There were several men sat on other men’s laps, and a pair by the bar were veering close to breaking at least one of the doorman’s three rules; but the behaviour was otherwise respectable, and the muscles under Adil’s hand began, almost imperceptibly, to relax.

“Would you like another?” Toby asked him, almost as soon as the bottom of Adil's empty glass hit the table. Adil supposed a grin of triumph would be pushing his luck.

“I’ll get them.”

“Let’s go together,” Toby said quickly, and though he tensed again when Adil slipped an arm around his waist, he plucked up enough courage to rest his hand on Adil’s lapel as they waited to be served.

Just as they neared the front of the queue, the drummer struck up a low, syncopated rhythm. It sounded familiar to Adil, though he couldn’t think why, and was about to ask Toby whether he had heard the song before when he emitted a peculiar gasping sound.

“It’s _Sing Sing Sing_ ,” Toby said, sounding awestruck.

Adil blinked, perplexed, before the trumpet started up.

“Oh, this isn’t-?” he asked delightedly. “This is the song which makes you seduce me!”

“I beg your pardon?” Toby spluttered, but he had flushed bright pink.

“Whenever this comes on the wireless you can’t get my clothes off fast enough.”

“Keep your voice down!” Toby hissed. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Toby, I’ve spent some of the best minutes of my life listening to this song-”

“Alright!” Toby snapped. “I just think it’s- you know,” he said, gesturing awkwardly, “ _Sensual_ ,” he finished in an undertone. “I’ve never heard it live before.”

“Can you imagine if Sonny played it at the hotel? You’d give the guests quite a show.”

They had reached the front of the queue. The brass was squealing, and the very walls seemed to vibrate with the steady rumble of the drums. Toby looked at him for a long moment, eyes hard and blazing, before he thrust out his hand.

“I’m going to dance,” he said, almost aggressively. “Are you coming?”

Adil was pulled to the dancefloor, and they pressed through clusters of perspiring bodies to reach a gap. If this had been a film, he thought, he would have been enthralled by the grace and style of Toby’s movements; as it was, he danced rather jerkily, his long, slender limbs moving as if independent of one another. It was strangely endearing, and so uniquely Toby in the way he managed to render the awkward somehow alluring. Adil knew he himself was no natural dancer, but surrounded by firm, damp bodies, liquor roaring through his veins, he could hear nothing but the relentless pulse of the drums, feel nothing but Toby’s sweaty hand in his, see nothing but his slim, elegant face alight with joyous abandon.

Eight minutes later, when the song finished and the band returned to Glenn Miller, they remained on the dancefloor. Adil felt as though every nerve in his body was singing; he felt drunk with it, and each time Toby caught his eye, his face split into that enchanting toothy grin which brought the tight, twisting sensation rushing to Adil’s chest.

They had arrived at the club just after ten o’clock, and at midnight, they both began to wilt. The club was impossibly full, though the dancefloor had emptied a little as more and more gentlemen began to take liberties with the doorman’s rules. Toby’s hair was falling into his eyes; he had pulled his shirt collar away from his neck, and Adil could see, even in the dim light, the vivid marks on his throat.

“What do you say we head back to Paddington?” he said. He pulled Toby towards him, their breathing quick from dancing, and pressed him close with a hand at the small of his back. “I don’t want to break any of the rules.”

“I won’t have to climb in through the window again, will I?”

“My landlady’s in Dorset for the weekend. We’ll be quite safe.”

Toby pulled back, beginning to disentangle himself from Adil’s hold, when the band suddenly slowed their tempo. Toby turned his head to look at them, and something flickered across his face; when he looked back at Adil, his eyes were over-bright.

“Can we stay for just this one?”

The brass was smooth and lilting now, and though they held each other closely again, there was something gentle to it. Toby dropped his head onto Adil’s shoulder, and the weight of it caused the tightness in Adil’s chest to become an ache. Toby was all around him, the scent of him, the heat of him, and yet Adil’s head was clear. He had never felt more in love.

 _Let’s build a stairway to the stars_  
_And climb that stairway to the stars,_  
_With love beside us_  
_To fill the night with a song._

 _We’ll hear the sound of violins_  
_Out yonder where the blue begins._  
_The moon will guide us_  
_As we go drifting along._

 _Can’t we sail away on a lazy daisy petal_  
_Over the rim of the hill?_  
_Can’t we sail away on a little dream_  
_And settle high on the crest of a thrill?_

 _Let’s build a stairway to the stars;_  
_A lovely stairway to the stars._  
_It would be heaven_  
_To climb to heaven with you._

The singer stepped away from the microphone, and the trumpet solo began. Toby raised his head.

“Thank you,” he said, in the same raw voice which Adil had first heard all those months ago. “For this. For everything.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry I panicked earlier.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Adil said. “You’re rational, I’m the romantic; we’re better off together.”

That _was_ sentimental, but for once Toby didn’t seem to mind. He smiled, squeezing Adil’s hand, as the shabby, rose-coloured lamps winked peaceably on the walls.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> The song quoted is 'Stairway to the Stars' by Glenn Miller. Here's the link if anyone fancies a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcB_CJ-ZIDY. Thank you for reading x


End file.
